The winners of the inaugural Vodafone Foundation Smart Accessibility Awards have been announced at a ceremony attended by Neelie Kroes, the European Commissioner for Digital Agenda.

The competition was launched earlier this year in partnership with AGE Platform Europe and the European Disability Forum. Its aim was to reward developers who’d used the power of smartphones and the mobile internet to support the needs of disabled and older people.

Location-based social network Gowalla is to close at the end of January, having been acquired by Facebook.

User data isn’t being transferred; Gowalla says it intends to provide an easy way for users to export this information.

Qualcomm has created a new wholly-owned subsidiary called Qualcomm Life that’ll run the business unit formerly known as Qualcomm Wireless Health.

In addition, Qualcomm has set up a $100 million ‘Qualcomm Life Fund’ for the Qualcomm Ventures group to invest in wireless health projects.

Mobile Virtual Network Aggregator Cognatel, which works with Vodafone in the UK, has created a new virtual mobile network for what’s described as the UK’s first customisable mini mobile phone.

CyCell will run the MVNO with a ‘white label’ credit card sized mobile handset that can be designed within days. Pre-programmed numbers can be linked to printed buttons on the phone, with all the call routing based within the network.

Tesco is the latest company to introduce free WiFi. It’s expanding its recent WiFi trial to all Tesco Extra stores nationwide.

Customers who’ve registered a Tesco Clubcard will have unlimited access; other customers will be able to use the service free for 15 minutes every 24 hours.